by Mark Zuehlke
While the mine clearing had been going on, the Germans had sporadically shelled the area with artillery and mortars. But shortly after most of the mines had been lifted, the firing intensified and the tankers were forced to take shelter inside their Shermans. For five hours the bombardment raged, and the “danger was increased when the stubble was set afire and . . . ammunition and petrol dumps in the immediate vicinity went up in flames.” The shelling, fires, exploding ordnance, and loss of the truck carrying mechanical repairs forced Major Mills to decide that the squadron would have to spend the night out in the open. He hoped that under cover of darkness the tankers could repair the disabled tanks and carefully extract them from the minefield.23
HAVING CARRIED ON alone, the RCR met no opposition during its advance. Both ‘A’ and ‘B’ companies slogged up their respective grass-covered hills to find them abandoned. Captain Strome Galloway was suitably impressed by the defensive works that had been carefully dug on the top of ‘B’ Company’s objective. The slit trenches were deep, and several well-protected magazines had been stuffed full of mortar bombs and grenades. Scattered about the area were bits and pieces of Italian uniforms, boxes of rations, and other paraphernalia that looked as if they had been abandoned in a hurry. Galloway figured that the position could not have been vacated more than twelve hours before.
When the battalion’s intelligence officer came up, he surmised that the Italians had been ordered to hold the hills as a screen to cover the German withdrawal from Valguarnera. Undoubtedly they had been expected to make a stand, but the moment the Germans were out of sight had instead fled and hidden in the caves of the nearby higher hills. This theory would be borne out three days later when ‘D’ Company’s second-in-command, Captain R.A. “Dick” Couche, was “heeding the call of nature” and looked up to find a platoon of Italian soldiers watching him. “They had been hiding in a cave and were surrendering to Dick. It was an embarrassing moment. He was certainly caught with his pants down!” Galloway wrote in his diary that evening. The Italians confessed they had been ordered to hold the hills, but had run away and waited until the fighting was well past before coming down from the caves to give up.24
Having gained their objective, ‘B’ Company had just started to settle into the defensive positions prepared by the Italians when a strong wind came up, spreading a grass fire, which had been burning about two hundred yards away, in their direction. Galloway and his men were thrown into a panic as the flames raced through the short, dry grass around the magazines containing the mortar rounds and grenades. But the fires passed by so quickly the ordnance failed to explode. The men “avoided being burned by standing up and hopping over the wall of flame as it approached us ... [to land in] the blackened and smoking grass over which it had passed a second before.”25
After spending several uneventful hours on the scorched hilltops, the two companies were called down to the battalion’s position by the road between the two heights. Galloway headed for Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Crowe’s battalion headquarters to attend an ‘O’ Group. He found Crowe and his headquarters group “eating a greasy supper of stew off an improvised table in the barnyard of a dilapidated farm. Seated around the table on broken chairs, a wooden box and a long bench they looked grubby and unkempt. Piles of manure lay all around.” About fifty yards to one side a body “lay under a blanket, stiff and still.”
Captain Slim Liddell arrived just after Galloway. He had “sweat streaming in rivulets down his flame-fanned body” and was “naked to the waist, carrying his sooty, damp bush shirt over his arm. He looked exhausted from the long walk back from the hill. He saluted and then almost collapsed on an old box near one end of the table, content that he had done a good day’s work. I felt the same way, but being a few years younger than Slim, I was not quite so near to a state of collapse. Besides, I still had my shirt on.
“Slim had hardly found time to open his lips and exhale the journey’s fug from his lungs when Crowe barked out: ‘Captain Liddell, what do you mean, coming into an officers’ mess improperly dressed?’
“There were times,” Galloway thought, “when the enemy was the least of our worries,” as Liddell hurriedly donned his grimy shirt to achieve some semblance of the propriety demanded of a peacetime officers’ mess.26 A few minutes later, Galloway and Liddell learned that the nearby corpse was that of the Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment’s commander, Lieutenant Colonel Bruce Sutcliffe.
The officer had been killed while conducting a reconnaissance to confirm a plan that he and 1 CIB’s Brigadier Howard Graham had decided for the capture of the heights of Assoro. Both men had reckoned Assoro would be virtually impregnable and that the Hasty Ps, who were to pass through the Royal Canadian Regiment that night to carry out the assault, would be lucky not to be decimated in the attempt. Graham looked up at the ruined Norman castle high on the summit and followed the switchback course of the road winding up to it. He could easily imagine that the road would be mined and blown up in parts to prevent its use by tanks. Bordering houses and adjacent clusters of brush and trees provided countless concealed positions for machine guns and snipers, while from the summit the road would be exposed to artillery and mortar fire. “To hope for success by moving up the torturous road was out of the question,” Graham said. “The regiment would be slaughtered.”27
So what to do? With binoculars, the two officers studied the summit. Right upon the highest point were the “stark ruins” of the castle, “and to the left of this, clear against the sky, was a row of cypress trees that I knew marked a burying ground. The southeast face of the cliff was almost sheer, but there was a considerable amount of scrub, and we could discern what appeared to be goat tracks in some places.” Holding the map and standing beside Sutcliffe and Graham was the Hasty Ps’ intelligence officer, Captain Maurice Herbert Battle Cockin. He had graduated from Cambridge University and had experience mountaineering in the Andes before the war.
A right hook up that sheer side of the mountain was the only hope the Hasty Ps had, the three men agreed. Use the goat paths or scale the bloody thing if they had to in order to get on top of the escarpment above the town. It was unlikely the Germans would consider an attack from that side possible, so they would have their defences covering the road and concentrated in the town rather than on the summit. The assault companies would strip down to minimal gear—weapons, ammunition, water bottles. And they would go up in darkness.
Gamble agreed upon, Graham headed to divisional headquarters to work up an artillery-support plan. He wanted to knock out the artillery that was firing from the summit so it could not swing around to slaughter the Hasty Ps as they crawled up the cliff.28
Sutcliffe and Cockin went to the RCR battalion headquarters for a closer look at possible routes up the cliff face. They arrived to find the area being shelled intermittently by the German 88-millimetre guns on the summit. Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Crowe guided Sutcliffe and Cockin to a position beside a clump of trees in which the RCR’s anti-tank platoon had its guns concealed. From the gun position, Lieutenant Sherry Atkinson watched the battalion commanders discuss the situation. Crowe signalled Atkinson over and told him to fire at the German guns with a high explosive tracer-fitted round, so they could see where it fell. Atkinson passed the order to his gun sergeant, who adamantly protested that firing a tracer would expose their position and undoubtedly draw return fire “right up the spout.” Mustering his arguments, Atkinson went back to Crowe and set them out, only to be told to get on with firing the round. Standing beside Crowe, Sutcliffe remained silent, while Atkinson pleaded to be allowed to drag one gun out of the concealed position with ropes to another firing position. This would prevent betraying the hiding place of the other guns. When he said this would take only fifteen minutes, Crowe agreed.
The gun was soon set up, with Crowe, Sutcliffe, and Cockin standing behind it to observe the fall of the tracer. Moments after the shot was fired, a reply round from an 88-millimetre slammed down. Sutcliffe was killed outri
ght and Cockin gravely wounded. Atkinson was amazed that he, Crowe, and all the gun crew were unharmed. The anti-tank gunner shot Crowe a look that “told it all,” though he was not sure whether it had been the RCR commander or Sutcliffe who had wanted the round fired or what purpose it was to have served. Crowe ordered that Sutcliffe’s body be covered and a message sent to the Hasty Ps to see if they wanted the RCR to bury him or hold the body for pickup.29
BACK AT THE Hasty Ps’ battalion headquarters, Major John Tweedsmuir could hear the “distant crump of shells ahead where the enemy were ranging on the road” that Sutcliffe and Cockin had gone up earlier on their reconnaissance. Then suddenly the news “came through quite bluntly” at 1530 hours that Sutcliffe “had been killed by a shell.” A Jeep with Cockin loaded on board in a stretcher came in soon after. Someone told Tweedsmuir that the intelligence officer wanted to speak with him. The major hurried over and crouched down to where Cockin lay face down on the stretcher. In a feeble voice, he said, “For God’s sake don’t go up that road.” As the intelligence officer was carried towards the Regimental Aid Post, Tweedsmuir headed for a briefing at brigade headquarters.30 Cockin died of his wounds.
The briefing was held in a deserted barn by lamplight. Although shocked by Sutcliffe’s death, Graham did not let his emotions show as he outlined the plan that he and the two dead officers had agreed on. He also confirmed Tweedsmuir’s immediate promotion to command of the Hasty Ps. Thinking it would be unfair to the new battalion commander to directly order him to carry out such a risky attack if he opposed it, Graham asked Tweedsmuir if he was prepared to carry it out. Graham was pleased that “he not only agreed but seemed enthusiastic.”31
When the meeting broke up, Tweedsmuir went to the RCR battalion headquarters for his own look at things. He saw Sutcliffe lying face down. “He was a grand fellow, a good soldier, and a great friend,” Tweedsmuir thought. But there was a battle to be fought and no time for grief. Directly north stood Assoro. “The broad valley ended abruptly in a mass of high hills, showing blue in the early dusk. A twisting ribbon of white road wound up the slopes in the direction of the town which was out of our sight on the heights. Above the town was the highest hill of all. It rose straight and steep from the valley dominating the hills beyond. The map showed a Norman castle on the top and gave the height at 906 metres. I realized fully what Cockin had meant by not going down the road.”
At dusk, the bodies of Sutcliffe and Cockin were wrapped in blankets and buried in a field by the road near brigade headquarters. The Hasty Ps’ pioneers marked the graves with a couple of crudely made wooden crosses.32
When the quick burial service ended, Tweedsmuir hurried back to his battalion and soon had it on the move. They were carried by truck to Dittaino Station, and from there the infantry went forward on foot. The fire had spread from the boxcars to the station itself. In single file the men marched up the road, a column more than a mile long. About a quarter mile from the station, the Hasty Ps left the road on a path running to the northeast. “The moon was high now and very bright. It shone on rolling pasture land through which dry stream beds cut deep gullies. The path ended and we entered a narrow rocky stream bed. It was very narrow and we stumbled on loose rocks. Every now and then we halted to rest. Once out of the stream bed the land rose and we found a sheep track.”33
The troops could hear the division’s medium artillery laying down an intense barrage on the crossroads at the western base of the mountain and walking shells up the slope to pound the town and summit. Soon all the division’s artillery joined in with fire on the town and approaches. From 2100 hours to 0100 hours on the morning of July 21 the guns thundered, serving to cover any sounds the Hasty Ps might make and to convince the Germans that the assault would come up the road.34
Before the Hasty Ps had moved out for the attack at 2130 hours, Tweedsmuir had decided to create a special assault company composed of hand-picked men from the entire battalion. All were volunteers. Captain Alex Campbell commanded, Lieutenant George Baldwin acted as company second-in-command, Lieutenants Farley Mowat, Fred Burt, and Cliff Broad were the platoon leaders.35 Each platoon commander had charge over “twenty of the fittest men.”36 They “were stripped of all their gear except for essential arms and ammunition, for it was to be their task to lead the Regiment; to scale the cliffs, and before dawn broke clearly, to occupy the mountain crest.”37
Tweedsmuir was close to the head of the single-file column as it wound carefully overland towards the “loom of the big mountain [that] showed faintly in the blue black distance.” Whenever a farm was spotted or a dog barked, the Hasty Ps gave each a wide berth. Soon they were climbing a gentle slope that led to the cliff. Coming to a rocky ridge, Tweedsmuir realized they had ascended to one side of a ravine that separated them from the mountainside. Before him, the mountain “looked vast in the paling darkness and the ravine that girdled the bottom looked formidable.”38
It was 0400 hours, and the Hasty Ps had penetrated three miles into enemy territory to reach their start point for the climb. Tweedsmuir directed Campbell’s assault company to climb directly up what looked to be a virtually sheer thousand-foot cliff on the left, with ‘A’ Company following in support. Meanwhile, he would take ‘B’ and ‘C’ companies by a gentler, but still formidably steep, route up the right-hand side of the eastern face. ‘D’ Company would remain at the mountain base to protect their rear.39
The immediate problem was the ravine. It was about forty feet deep “with absolutely smooth sides forming a natural moat to the stronghold which they were going to assault. It looked impossible but they went ahead, discovered a goat track down the ravine and clambered up the other side.”40 Traversing the ravine had eaten up precious time. To the east the sky was brightening with a false dawn.
Campbell led the assault company up the cliff, while Tweedsmuir guided the majority of the battalion along the route to the right. Both groups were soon engaged in what many later said was the most strenuous and terrifying experience of their war. Farley Mowat believed “each of us performed his own private miracle.”41
Centuries before, the mountain had been sculpted into forty-seven steep, badly overgrown terraces. “From ledge to ledge the dark figures of [the assault company] made their way, hauling each other up, passing along weapons and ammunition from hand to hand. A signaller made that climb with a heavy wireless set strapped on his back—a thing that in daylight was seen to be impossible. Yet no man slipped, no man dropped so much as a clip of ammunition. It was just as well, for any sound by one would have been fatal to all.”42
To the right, Tweedsmuir marvelled at the stamina of the men. Rightly exhausted by the approach march to the mountain itself, they dug deep into some inner core of will and overcame the desire to declare it “impossible to continue.”43 Not easy, “when always above was a tantalizing false crest, which unfolded to another crest when one approached it.” Tweedsmuir and Regimental Sergeant Major Angus Duffy were right at the front of the rightward column, silently enduring “the forty sweating ... minutes before we stood on the top beside the shell of the great Norman castle and realized that we had achieved complete surprise.”44
Campbell’s company had gained the summit moments earlier. The two men in the lead “dragged themselves up over a stone wall and for one stark moment stared into the eyes of three sleepy Germans manning an observation post. Private [Alfred Keith] Long cut down one of the Germans who tried to flee. The remaining enemy soldiers stood motionless, staring as children might at an inexplicable apparition,” as the rest of the Hasty Ps streamed over the wall.45
Looking around a corner of the castle, Tweedsmuir was astonished to see not a single German soldier. The summit, with parched dry grass growing under widely interspersed clusters of wild oaks, was deserted. Only the sharp retort of a Bren gun told him that Campbell’s men had encountered something, but it cut off so quickly that he knew any opposition on that front had been silenced.46
Quickly the leading Hasty Ps r
ushed to the summit’s western edge and took up firing positions directed down on the town and road. With each passing minute another man at the head of “the two long columns of climbing men” arrived to add his firepower.47 About ten minutes after the first men gained the summit, “as the sun cleared the eastern hills,” they were all assembled and looking down upon a convoy of German trucks winding up the road towards the town. The Hasty Ps could hear the drivers grinding gears and the roar of the overworked engines straining under the weight of the ammunition, rations, and water they carried.48 As the dozen or so trucks swung around a hairpin turn before the entrance to the town, they passed immediately below the Hasty Ps. Without waiting for an order, one Bren gunner fired a long burst. A dozen other Bren guns immediately began spitting bullets, while several 2-inch mortars chunked out bombs and the other men weighed in with their rifles. Eight of the trucks were immediately knocked out, two or three bursting into flames.49